Sex discrimination: No victimisation because employer not vicariously liable

This report relates to 1 case(s)

In Waters v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (3 July 1997) EOR76A, the Court of Appeal rules that an employer could not be liable for victimising an employee who alleged that she was sexually harassed by a work colleague, where the alleged harassment was not committed in the course of employment.

In Waters v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [1997] IRLR 589, the Court of Appeal holds that, in order to qualify
for statutory protection against victimisation for having alleged a
discriminatory act, the claimant must have asserted facts which are capable of
amounting in law to an act of sex discrimination. On that basis, the industrial
tribunal and the EAT had correctly rejected a police constable's complaint that
she had been victimised by her employer contrary to the Sex Discrimination Act
by being subjected to a detriment because she alleged that she had been
sexually assaulted by a male colleague.

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